During the last few hundred miles of my PCT hike, I developed a sharp pain in my right elbow when I used my trekking poles. I had to discontinue using trekking poles for the remainder of the hike. I figured it was an overuse injury. Almost 1.5 years later, and I still get the pain when I use hiking poles. The pain starts coming on within about 5 minutes. If I push on using poles, the pain can linger for several days. The only time I get this pain is when I use trekking poles. Has anybody else experienced this? Any suggestions what is causing it or how to alleviate it?

I xc ski race and often will get some early season elbow pain with certain poling motions. I think it is a sort of tendinitis and by backing off a bit and massaging the area it's disappears quickly. I think that ignoring the pain significantly delays recovery.

Joshua,What part of your elbow hurts? Is it the dorsal aspect (outside) of elbow or the flexor (inside) aspect? Is it the back of the elbow- olecranon? Is there an area of point tenderness? Specifically, while resting your palm on a flat surface & dosiflexing (raising palm) at the wrist against resistance from the other hand, does the outside of the elbow hurt?

James, The pain comes from the olecranon area, on the back side of my elbow. It feels like it is coming from the ulnar groove. I only feel it if I exercise my triceps in a particular way. Almost like I'm pinching something. I tried lifting my palm with resistance and didn't feel any pain.

I haven't seen a physician as I don't have insurance. It's too bad I didn't see one when I first experienced this pain. I had insurance then.

I went through something similar with "golfers elbow" I believe they call it--the opposite of tennis elbow; i.e. pain on the inside of the elbows. It took a long time to resolve (a year) and I was told that this was typical. What helped me was doing strengthening excersizes that targeted that area. My gym has a hand gripper that worked great for this; squeezing a ball actually hit the same area. I too nordic ski and use hiking poles; it was one or both of these activities that caught up with me by surprise.Two years after recovery and I've been golden; it can be done! Now if I can fix my knee...

Elbow problems like this are really tough. Mine would get aggrivated by the simplest things. It took about 6 months to get a bit better with exercise and stretching. A Cortizone shot helped a great deal as well. Some people can never rid themselves of tennis elbow.